Chemistry instructor and author of a new book on teaching first generation college students gives tips on how to help students improve the quality of their studying.
Some tips about managing feelings of isolation--even more important now that classes have ended. If you are interested in connecting with other faculty this summer, the CIP is hosting a Summer Writing Group as well as book clubs and workshops.
OSU hosts a free teaching with technology conference every spring. Lunch and light refreshments are provided, and the conference covers a number of emerging topics in higher education.
If you are interested, you can register at this link by May 10.
Writing is a major component of many academic disciplines, but how can professors give feedback that will allow students of different backgrounds the opportunity to grow? Laurie McMillin, Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Oberlin College, give some tips on getting the best writing from ESL and multilingual writers in the college classroom.
We spend a lot of time focusing on backward design, but that model presumes a great deal of knowledge of what the course is about and what students will get out of it. This professor lays out the questions you need to ask when designing a course for the first time, and the result is a kind of flexible forward design.
Interested in tools that make course content more accessible to students with visual and cognitive challenges? Two free Microsoft products features their Immersive Reader tool, which reads aloud text for users.
One issue in discussions of college writing is how to incorporate writing practice into STEM courses. Some Kenyon professors in STEM subjects include journal assignments and process descriptions into their courses. Here are some suggestions on similar metacognitive "writing to learn" approaches, including guidelines for feedback to students.
Cult of Pedagogy editor-in-chief Jennifer Gonzalez reviews research on note taking from the past three decades and revises her own principles for how to help students organize and recall what they are learning.
This article touches on some of the concerns about rubrics I often hear from faculty, especially that rubrics cause students to "write to the rubric". The author suggests making rubrics focused on generally beneficial writing habits. Another issue mentioned is the variance of rubrics between faculty, but that seems healthy given that writing assignments are also thinking assignments, and patterns of thinking may vary significantly from course to course.
The syllabus and the first days of class can help set up the classroom dynamic for the entire semester. Here are the strategies one professor uses to set up expectations for her courses, including rules for class discussion.
This article suggests some classroom assessment techniques and discussion strategies to get the most out of the introverts in your class. The CIP can consult with faculty about other techniques to suit the variety of students that you encounter.
This week, we read the last chapters in Small Teaching, which focus on the emotional dimension of student experience. Here is one suggestion from an immunology professor on making personal connections with students as a way to improve their performance in your course.
This week in our Small Teaching book club, we were discussing the value of monitored practice versus the stress that public feedback can generate in classrooms. Here, John Warner makes some observations about private and monitored practice and suggests that real time feedback is best suited to honing discrete skills
Along with small group sessions such as the CIP's own GIFT program, faculty are exploring new models of course evaluation and assessment that make use of trained student observers.
The Open Access movement encompasses a number of initiatives that encourage more affordable course materials for students, shared resources among teachers, and collaboration among scholars. Here are some simple ways of contributing to Open Access in your research and teaching practices.